He pulled the Arrow into a steep left-hand turn, in order to clear the Lexingtons bulk if his main drive failed. He recalled one hotshot on the Tigers Claw who'd ignored the clearing turn, then lost his engines. The sixty-thousand-ton strike carrier hadn't left enough of the fighter to bury, much less the pilot.
The Arrow, freed of the Lexingtons bulk, picked up the distress call. "… day. Mayday," a scratchy voice said, "this is the packet Velden Jones. We are a convoy under attack. Our escort has been disabled. We are under attack. May…" Heavy static built as jamming cut off the rest of the message. Blair switched to his own navigation plot as Naismith updated his map. The convoys location appeared, as did an asteroid field several thousand klicks beyond.
Catscratch rocketed out of the starboard launch tube a moment later. Blair kept his lazy left-hand turn as Carter punched his afterburners to take up his station to Blairs wing. Blair kept his turn long enough for the last two fighters of Scout Six to complete launch and form up.
"We're here," one of the other Arrow pilots announced.
"Radio silence!" Blair snapped "Form on me." He turned his fighter toward the distant fight and hit his afterburner. The loose diamond behind him followed smoothly, boosting towards the beleaguered convoy.
The formation took only a few minutes to cross open space to the stricken ships. Blair watched with a sickening feeling as convoy ship after ship faded from his tactical screen. He knew, even as he boosted his fighter to its maximum velocity, that they would be too late to save the transports. The last of them vanished from his tactical plot just as he came into extreme visual range. There was no sign of the attackers.
He led his small force into the middle of what had been the convoy. One ship detonated as they passed through, vanishing from the pilots' sight in a flare of blue-white. Blair saw several hulks, the remains of the Confed transports, drifting in macabre formation. Their blackened remains and hollowed appearances made them look like giant insect husks. One snip tumbled end over end, its drives still glowing with residual heat. Blair detected no signs of life or active energy signals from any of the ships.
The senselessness of the attack mystified and angered him. He could understand destruction as an act of war, or even comprehend raiding for booty, but this annihilation without apparent cause infuriated him. He cut his drives, easing up between a pair of blackened and destroyed ships. He then activated his gun cameras to record the remains. He wanted people to see the carnage that had been wrought.
"All right," Blair said, trying to master his emotions as he completed his recording, "the bastards can't have gone far. We'll run some fish-hook search patterns and see if we can't pick them up. If you find them, stay off the radio. One of you stays put and trails the target while the other hightails it back to the Lady Lex for the strike force. Questions?" He waited a moment, then called the flight's second element leader. "Varmint, assume course 040. Use your own discretion on your outbound legs, but don't wander out of the Lex's range. Remember, radio silence."
He tapped his thumb on his control yoke, then aimed the Arrow away from the destroyed convoy. Catscratch followed smoothly, staying perched just off his left wing as Blair brought them onto their own search course. They boosted together, accelerating to maximum standard velocity. Blair kept one eye on his readouts, balancing his thrust and fuel consumption as the readout hovered around 520 kilometers per second. He ran out along his base course, checking his tactical scanner for any signs of the raiders.
He held course and speed for several minutes, alternately checking his scanner readouts and looking out of the cockpit for visual clues. They saw nothing on the outbound leg. He had just reached the decision to bend the search pattern back to the left and pick up another pie-wedged slice of space when he caught a momentary blip on his scanner. It flickered blue and red, as though the Arrow's computer was uncertain of the blip's identity as friend or foe. It flickered again, turned red, and vanished. Under other circumstances Blair would have ignored it as a sensor artifact. The contact had been too fleeting and uncertain for a good lock-on.
He switched to a low-powered tight-beam laser link and called Catscratch. "Did you see that?" he asked.
"See what?" Catscratch replied.
Blair would have been a lot happier if his wingman had also seen the trace. He considered a moment, then made his decision.
"I think I saw something, maybe a radio signal," he said. "It's worth checking out." He checked his nav plot, letting his voice harden. "Assume course 330 Z plus five. Kill your IFF and data telemetry systems."
"Our side won't know it's us without the IFF!" Catscratch protested.
"It'll reduce our own electronic signatures," Blair said. "Do it. And stay off the radio."
"Aye, aye, sir," Catscratch said, a touch petulantly. So much for the hero worship, Blair thought sourly.
He touched his throttle, kicking in his afterburners and boosting his speed to try and close on the ghost contact before it moved too far out of range. He also tried to keep his approach somewhat oblique, the better to stalk his quarry.
They quickly closed on the location where Blair had caught the signal. He ran several crisscrosses, hoping to pick up another trace. Nothing. The longer he ran search patterns, the more he felt he a been chasing gremlins.
He was just beginning to feel a little silly about the whole thing when he caught another momentary blip on his scanner, again at extreme range. This time it remained steady, though on the very edge of his detection range. He brought his fighter around to center it in his scanner's inner ring.
It remained reassuringly solid, enough for him to switch to his target tracker, The red cross glowed brighter, indicating that his AI had achieved lock-on. He smiled. So much for gremlins. The target began to post a diminishing range in small numbers below the graphic. He waited for the AI to give him a target identity on the tactical scanner, then frowned as the screen remained blank. Either the fighter had no match in its inventory of ship types, or more likely, it couldn't secure enough targeting data to run a match. He was torn between trying to close the distance to get a solid identification and risking detection.
The desire for stealth won out. He switched his throttles back, to maintain their relative distances. The range to target stopped dropping. The enemy craft was still well out of visual range, but close enough to provide the targeting system with a passive signal. He smiled. He wondered what Lieutenant Carter was thinking now that his hunch had paid off.
Blair was careful to keep his distance from his target. The Arrow was a narrow, wedge-shaped ship with a small cross section and few vertical surfaces. It had the smallest scanner signature in the fleet. Blair hoped to use that to his advantage. If he was lucky he could keep his opponent just within scanner range, while depending on his smaller signature to remain invisible. That way he could remain undetected long enough for the target to lead them back to its base.
He knew he was working with a good theory, but it was one talked about more than practiced. He wondered who he was outsmarting, his enemy or himself.
He checked his speed. Four hundred kilometers per second. He frowned at the odd velocity, then checked his range. It held steady at a little over 12,000 meters. He opened his tactical book and flipped through the technical data. Neither the Longbow bomber nor its Kilrathi equivalent, the Paktahn, could sustain 400 KPS without hitting afterburners. He checked the Thunderbolts configuration as well. The T-bolt could carry a torpedo, but couldn't maintain the speed without burners.
He tried to put himself in the enemy pilot's seat. He'd just finished his mission. It'd be time to relax and go home. If he didn't need to use afterburners to make base, then why bother? And if he did, then why use so little? The enemy (a fighter?) was moving only a few KPS faster than it should have been. The contradiction puzzled him.
He flipped through his book again. A Hellcat modified to carry a torpedo? Or perhaps a Draltha? Either would explain the speed, but the configuration would test the fram
es limits. He recalled how his experimental Excalibur had handled when he'd carried the Temblor Bomb. The weapon had reduced the nimble fighter to a space-going pig. He rubbed the Hellcat's page between two fingers. A torpedo-carrying Hellcat was possible, but it just didn't feel right.
He almost crowed with glee when he saw the profile of a larger ship appear on his scanner, lurking on the edge of the asteroid field. The capital ship's size suggested that it was either a fast transport or a small warship, possibly a frigate or light Kilrathi destroyer. The enemy craft bored in towards the ship, then vanished as it landed. That confirmed the ship as the enemy's base.
Bingo, he thought exultantly. He backed off his speed, enough to let the enemy mothership open up some distance. He cued his laser link. "Scratch," he said, "hit your burners and scoot back to the Lex. Bring the strike force here."
"How'll I find you again?" Catscratch asked.
Blair thought a moment. "I don't think we're going to wander too far. I'll keep an eye out for you." He paused. "Don't forget to turn your IFF back on, unless you want to tangle with a T-bolt."
"Roger," the rookie replied.
Blair watched Catscratch's fighter heel sharply over, then vanish as he blasted away under full afterburners. He smiled at the youngster's enthusiasm, then looked back at the target. It would be a while before Catscratch brought the strike force back. He could best use the time to do a quick recon and prepare targeting data for Dagger, Strike Six's leader.
His first step was to obtain a computer identification. He switched to targeting mode and selected the ship. He then began a long, slow loop, designed to bring him around behind it. He, like most pilots, believed that a capital ships scanners were less efficient directly astern. Once behind it, he crept up on the target until he saw its drive plume, winking and flaring like a star in the distance. It accelerated, turning away from the asteroid field, its mission apparently complete.
Blair yawed wide to the right, far enough to get a decent profile view of the ship. The targeting computer flashed a graphic over the ship, then listed a likely class identification in the targeting box. Blair sucked air in through his teeth as it selected Caernaven frigate. The Caernavens were an older, but still serviceable class.
He flipped to the tactical book again, this time to the Caernavens page. He wasn't surprised to learn that the Confederation had stricken the ships from active service. Many were held in reserve status or had been mothballed. Others had been sold to the Border Worlds, or, stripped of their guns and weapon systems, to private concerns. The Kilrathi had even captured a few as trophy ships. Blair ground his teeth in frustration. The Caernavens were, without a doubt, as common as dirt.
He boosted his speed a bit, to confirm the computer's ident with his own visual inspection. It looked to him like a Caernaven, except for a lozenge-shaped blister along its belly. Blair guessed the blister marked the profile of a landing bay, perhaps one large enough to handle a half-dozen strike craft. The shape of the bay nagged at him, but he couldn't dredge up the recollection.
The frigate killed the notion that the attack had been a botched raid for booty. No warship that small had enough cargo space to make a pirate raid profitable. Blair was willing to bet that whatever hold space the frigate did have was tied up in servicing the fighters. No, the objective had definitely been to kill ships.
He dropped back to extreme visual range of the frigate. He thought he caught a glimmer of motion at the front end of the frigate's launch bay. His target tracker flickered a moment, showing enemy ships for an instant. They vanished. He looked down, puzzled. Was it a sensor artifact? Some special weapon launched by the frigate?
He was drawn from the question by distant signals he guessed were from the incoming attack force. He prepared a tight-beam burst transmission reporting his findings, then squirted it in the strike force's direction.
"Tallyho," he heard in his headset, "one bogey bearing 330."
He quickly moved to turn his IFF on. "Disregard," the voice said, "its friendly." Blair smiled at the man's disappointed tones.
He shook his head in wonder as the strike force fell into position around him. Catscratch had brought the entire group, with enough firepower for a fleet action, much less a single lousy escort ship. He paused, then realized the fault was his. He hadn't actually told the younger pilot not to bring the entire ready group. It was a less-than-auspicious beginning for his tenure as wing commander.
The rookie, oblivious to Blair's ruminations, resumed his customary wing slot.
He heard a crackling in his headphones. "Dagger to Alpha Six, that's it? One frigate?" Blair heard the disbelief in her voice. 'This is going to be like hunting bunny rabbits with a fusion cannon." Her voice turned serious. "The targets a Confed class ship. Is it a confirmed?"
"Yes," Blair answered, thinking of the landing the enemy fighter had made.
"All right," Dagger said, "we're still under peacetime rules of engagement. I'll have to get firing authority from the Lex"
"Roger," Blair replied, "I'll give them a chance to surrender while you get clearance." He boosted ahead of the formation before he switched to a high gain radio circuit. He selected a common commercial channel to transmit.
"Unidentified frigate," he said, "this is TCS Lexington Strike Group Six leader, callsign Heart of the Tiger, ordering you to heave to and prepare to be boarded." He disliked using his Kilrathi hero-name but reasoned that if the raiders were Cats, it might carry more weight. No such luck. The frigates drive plumes brightened. The ship accelerated to flank speed. Well, Blair thought sourly, so much for impressing 'em.
He cued his radio again. "Frigate, this is your final warning. I am authorized by the admiralty courts to destroy you if you do not comply with my instruction to heave to." The last was, to Blairs knowledge, a lie, but the frigate was unlikely to know that.
The ships only response was to engage with its defensive batteries. Blair cut his speed to open up more range as three streams of red-orange lasers began to flash past.
"Well," Dagger said, "that tears it." Blair nodded in agreement, then looked down at his comm board. It registered an incoming tight-beam burst signal. Dagger was a step ahead of him in decrypting it. "Alpha Six," she said, "I have authority."
"Roger," Blair replied. "The strike is yours."
Her voice cooled as she assumed control. "Dagger to Tazman. Set up for an anvil attack on her port bow. I'll take the starboard. If she turns to evade one of us, she'll give the other a clear shot." She paused. "Let your wingmate take the first shot. As long as we've got overkill, we might as well get some practice in."
"Strike Six to Raid Six," she said, switching to the Thunderbolt leader.
"This is Troubador," the T-Bolt leader replied. "What can we do for you?"
"Skin him," Dagger said.
"No problem," Troubador replied.
Blair watched the four heavy fighters blaze ahead, their afterburners almost blinding him as they leapt to attack. The frigate immediately engaged them, firing its defensive batteries as the T-Bolts closed like a pack of lions after a gazelle. The Longbows split into two sections, each covered by a pair of Hellcats, and began to work their way around to the frigates bows. Blair kept Catscratch close to him and flew high cover. Life was bad enough without having his strike force get jumped by another force.
Blair watched Raid Six engage the frigate. He saw the multicolored beams arc from the noses of two Thunderbolts as they chewed into the frigate's defensive shields. The first pair peeled off, their capacitors exhausted from the high energy demands of firing all six forward weapons at once. The second pair engaged. Blair watched the shields flare as the combined fire of plasma and photon guns ripped the frigate. Blair watched the first Thunderbolts swinging around to reengage the frigate's defensive batteries. Each of the frigates three laser turrets fell silent, battered into submission by the heavy fire.
The Thunderbolts continued to harass the ship, even after its weapons were destroyed. They swept in
close, making faked passes at her and firing across its bows. The Longbows settled, two on each bow of the frigate, and came to a dead stop.
"Begin target acquisition cycle," Dagger said.
"Roger," her wingman replied.
Blair knew the process would take a half minute or so as the torpedo's tracking system defeated the frigate's electronic defenses, jamming, and phase shields.
He used the time to make a final appeal. "Heart of the Tiger to unidentified frigate. Your weapons are gone, you are defenseless. Heave to and surrender now, or you will be destroyed."
He waited. "I have signal lock-on, phase counter lock-on, warhead armed, bearings set and matched," the Longbow pilot called, forgetting his callsign in the rush of the moment.
"Engage," Dagger said.
The Longbow accelerated towards the frigate, shortening the range before firing the deadly torpedo.
"This is your last warning," Blair said.
He heard a single voice, weak and scratchy, from his earphones. "Go to hell," it said.
The Longbow suddenly swerved away from the frigate. 'Torpedo away," the pilot yelled, his voice high-pitched and excited, "running hot and true. Range twenty-six hundred."
The warshot struck home a moment later, detonating its multimegaton fusion warhead in a blue-white flash. The weapon ate into the frigate, causing an even brighter secondary explosion. When the flare cleared, Blair saw nothing of the frigate.
He tried to feel something positive, jubilation at accomplishing the mission, satisfaction at avenging the convoy, anything. Instead, he felt empty. Senseless waste compounding senseless waste. He waited a moment to let the younger pilots chatter, to allow them their moment of exultation.
"Time to go home," he said tiredly.
Blair looked over his notes as Dagger finished her portion of the after-action report. He hadn't met Major Wu Fan before he'd joined the mission, but he'd already discovered her to be a formidable woman. Her grandmotherly features and tiny frame belied the whip-sprung steel within. She was known to the squadron she served in as executive officer as "Mother." Blair thought it likely the nickname had been bestowed with as much fear as affection.
The Price of Freedom Page 9
